Color

This weekend we painted the kitchen a light robin's egg blue. We also installed one of the light fixtures I bought last month. Both have helped lighten up the kitchen. Now all we have to do is to paint the cabinets and get a new countertop.... but that will have to wait. Here's a photo of the fireplace, I painted the brick.. what a beast.



The trees are starting to bud out and it's been fun to try to figure out what kind of plants we have. So far 2 lilac bushes, a forsythia, a red bud (magenta blossoms in spring), a pear tree, 2 cherries (we think), 2 hydrangea bushes, azaleas, boxwoods, daffodils, hostas and irises. A pretty good start, here's a pic of the forsythia.

New Door, Oh-ee-oh

Last week we had a new back door put in and Aaron built some steps for it on Sunday. It is really making a big difference to be able to go in and out away from the road. We still need to paint but it's amazing how it has affected the flow of the house and yard. Here's a before and after taken from different angles, you can see the old stone under the steps, Aaron had to break it up a little with a sledgehammer to get the steps to work.

The windows also were finished yesterday, the guys did a great job saving the old moldings and keeping the feel of the old windows. I've taken a couple of shots of the views from the windows. We've had beautiful clear weather here. These are both from upstairs, the first one is looking west.. you can't really see it but there is a pond over there. The second one is looking east from the hallway window.

The garden's shaping up too. Aaron put a deer fence in and I planted some blueberry bushes & strawberries that I bought last year and dug up at the old house and brought with us. I also planted some lettuce that I bought at this great little garden store that's not too far from here. I was happy to find out they had seed potatoes and will have a big selection of tomato plants soon. I think this year we'll try some different varieties.

Lost and Found

It feels a little strange going through the things other people left behind. I keep making up stories in my head about who lived here and what happened to make them leave the things they did.



This week we started going through the little wooded area out back and found a lot of junk... remnants of an old pool (above ground), a satellite dish, lots of building materials like asphalt shingles and tons of little stuff like bottles and cans. That area has been a dump for a long time, and it makes sense too, out here you either haul away your own stuff, pay someone to do it or just dump it out back.




I also started going through the attic and found some poor guy's list of offenses that ran for about 20 years and included stuff like assaulting an officer, DWI, and B&E. But I also found a sadder thing. It's a little cloth-bound notebook with some writing on the cover. There's a title, then some writing underneath by the meanest grandmom ever.

The Search for My Parent
By Chasity

They not lost. They just don't love you enough to be parents. But I always love you and you not mine. Be happy my love one. And always good luck to you.
Grandma

chickens, lights & vegetable beds

Last night we were woken up around midnight to the sound of squawking in the chicken coop. Aaron went outside to find a possum in the coop, we opened up one side of the and poked him out with a broom handle. Then we went to bed thinking everything was okay. Well, this morning I went out to check on them and the Americana doesn't have any tail feathers. Poor thing, she's the skittish one, too. When we lived in Durham she almost got eaten by the neighbor dog. Anyway, I looked her over and she doesn't appear to have any wounds. And today I'm going to put bricks around the outside of the coop to see if I can't tighten it up a little, he probably squeezed in under one side, either looking for feed or eggs.

This weekend we put in two 12x12 vegetable beds, well... Aaron did and I helped. He put down plastic over the one to discourage weeds. That's going to be it for the summer garden, in the fall we're hoping to start another bed or two. We went and bought a bunch of seeds and when we get back from Atlanta plan to start some plants in the greenhouse. I also put in some daffodils and planted some shrubs near the road.

On Saturday I bought some awesome vintage light fixtures. Peters Design in Downtown Durham is going out of business, they're an architectural salvage place that I've always loved but never had a reason to buy anything. Well I bought 4 old light fixtures and an old doorknob since we were missing one. Hopefully Aaron can get these working, I think they'll look great.

Oh, and we now have heat and hot water!

bbrrrr....

It's been a little like camping here for the last couple of days. We were hoping to have the heat installed by the time we moved in but it hasn't worked out that way. Luckily we've been able to heat the bedroom with space heaters so it hasn't been too bad at night. But you can see your breath in the morning!

The kitchen floor was installed today, we have to keep space heaters on in there too so the adhesive works. I think it came out pretty good... they still need to do the moldings but here's a photo of the progress.